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Dining with a 178-member Indian family By Rahul Bedi LOKUR: Dining with the world's largest 178- member joint family in India's southern Karnataka state is a hospitable but hurried affair. As one shift of between 25 and 30 Narsinganna family members finish eating - seated cross-legged on the floor in their large ancestral home in Lokur village, 420 kilometres north of the state capital Bangalore - another hungry batch replaces them. And, so it continues for most of the day that is largely taken up with the mid-day and the evening meal till the entire family is fed by the household women, who take turns at cooking in shifts of two hours each. Squatting before the row of wood-stoked fires in the smoky, cramped kitchen this army of women cooks and their female helpers daily prepare an average of 1,600 millet 'rotis' or flat unleavened bread and vast quantities of vegetables and lentils in massive steel buckets that are consumed by their family. Six in the morning onwards they labour in the kitchen till around eight in the evening with a short break in between that is taken up with other household chores like washing mountainous piles of clothing, peeling vegetables and kneading the ubiquitous millet, readying it for baking. "Cooking and housework is all that we know," Saraswati, the family's oldest woman said. Feeding so many people is tough, the 80-year old who now has an advisory role, declared resignedly. The younger girls, who graduate to cooking from between 10 and 12 years, serve the men-folk who eat first. Dozens of infants crawl unselfconsciously in and out of the laps of their elders, helping themselves to the food that is served in large steel 'thalis' or trays that are lined-up along the cavernous corridors on the ground floor of the main family house that doubles as the dining area. Above them, suspended from the ceiling, hang a row of cradles in which newborn babies are rocked to sleep by their mothers and other female family members, - when not on cooking detail or deployed on other domestic chores. "It is compulsory for all family members to eat together twice a day in the main house," Bhimanna, the 71-year old family patriarch said. "The family that eats together stays together," added the impressively moustached former wrestler prosaically. Five generations of Narsinganna's or around 130 out of a total of 178 members live in the old ancestral home and a cluster of six other houses nearby, living off 180 acres (73 hectares) of collectively owned farmland and the large family dairy. They are Hindus and migrated to Lokur some 350 years ago from further north. The remaining 50-odd family members, mostly school-going children and a handful of adults, live together under one roof in nearby Dharwar town, duplicating the modus vivendi of their family in the village. "We consume what we produce and share everything," Thiranandra said. There is no room for individual wants, the 37-year old in- charge of the family diary added. The Narsinganna's yearly household budget is around 1.2 million rupees (266,666 dollars) while another 300,000 rupees (6,666 dollars) is spent on clothing, medicines and farm labour. In India, these sums of money are deemed to be large. Annually they consume around 1.32 million pounds (598,742 kilograms) of millet and 33,000 pounds (14,968 kilograms) of wheat in addition to vegetables produced exclusively from 15 acres (6.07 hectares) of land. They also drink 12 gallons (54.5 litres) of milk every day and burn some 200 kilograms of fire wood. Around 20 bales of varied cloth bought each year around the autumn Hindu festival of Dusherra, which the Narsinganna's celebrate with gusto, to dress the entire family. "No concessions are made to individual requirements and vanities as pandering to that only leads to trouble and divisions," a family member said. Weddings are a festive affair, celebrated every eight or 10 years on a grand scale with several couples being married collectively after which they settle down to live in or around the ancestral home. "Whenever we have a wedding the state road transport corporation runs special busses," a family member said. The family's only entertainment is watching television after they were presented a set by the 'British Broadcasting Corporation' that featured them in a documentary four years ago. This lone television set has pride of place in the centre of the large hall at the top of the family house and is switched on sparingly when popular soap opera's are aired. "It's like watching television on a busy railway platform with children and people constantly milling around," Nyamanna said. "It's chaotic but comforting," he added. "Happiness is togetherness. We feel secure in our unity, camaraderie, brotherhood and accommodation," family head Bhimanna offered as explanation of how so many of them continued to live together at a time when the traditional Indian joint family system, threatened by consumerism and individuality, was swiftly disintegrating across the country. "Together we will remain intact and grow strong," he added optimistically but laughingly admits that he does not remember the names of all the family members. Others indicated that it was their womenfolk who had kept them together and consequently brides of around 15 years of age who had not studied beyond the fifth or sixth grade were preferred. Keeping the women "under control" ensured harmony in this unique joint family; giving them "undue freedom" could spell ruination, a senior Narsinganna pointed out quietly. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service. Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window)
